Specifications

University of Hertfordshire

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Linux is free:

Is it a disadvantage? But most of people will ask the question, is an Open Source and free product

trustworthy? The current situation will answer it. If Linux were not trustworthy, it would have been

long gone, never knowing the popularity it has now, with millions of users. After long periods of

testing, most Linux users come to the conclusion that Linux is not only as good, but in many cases

better and faster that the traditional solutions. (Garrels, 2002)

3.1.4 Conclusion

Above all, Linux is a complete and powerful UNIX System, and can easily be implemented.

Therefore, in this project Linux is selected as server Operating System. The reasons for that are:

Linux is the most popular free system, which has been widely used. Linux is a multi-user and

multi-process system, which fulfill the requirement of web server in this project. Moreover, Linux

completely support TCP/IP, which is used as transport protocol to communicate server and client.

3.2 Server Programming Language Selection

3.2.1 Introduction to C

C is a general-purpose Programming Language that was originally designed by Dennis Ritchie of

Bell Laboratories and implemented there on a PDP-11 in 1972. It was first used as the systems

language for the UNIX Operating System.

Nowadays, C, C++, Perl, Python, Tcl/TK, BASIC, and Java, there are many high-level languages

can be chosen for computer programming. Although, they are all excellent programming language,

many computer professionals feel that C is at the top of the list:

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C is a powerful and flexible language. C can be use for varies of projects such as Operating

Systems, word processors, graphics, spreadsheets, and even compilers for other language.

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C is popular language preferred by professional programmers. There are a lot of C compiler

and helpful accessories available.

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C is a portable language. That means a C program written for one computer system (for

instance, an IBM PC running Linux) can be complied and run on another system (a DEC

VAX system, perhaps) with little or no modification.

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C is a language of few words, containing only a handful of terms, called keywords, which